The number of school students doing maths and science is woefully inadequate in city areas. Numbers in rural areas are even worse! A new plan is in progress to improve the situation. Unfortunately, it will prove to be a total failure and waste of money.

Culture has inertia. It takes about half a century to alter established beliefs. Rural children believe that maths and science are too difficult for them so they do not even attempt them. They stay with the social subjects. The new "curative" program to solve the matter will ignore city students and concentrate on rural regions.

There is a noticeably low number of rural students doing education, engineering and science degrees. Note that 74 per cent of teachers in city areas have STEM experience, while only 17 per cent of rural teachers have done STEM work. The intention is to send high quality STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) teachers to the bush - they will love that! It is like sending the trainer of the winner of the Melbourne Cup to train horse riders in the sticks, an absolute waste of resources.

Advanced teachers are not the answer. Those who can teach the basics are needed because going with the horse analogy, getting over the first jump is the most difficult problem. If students get this achievement they will at least choose base maths. Australia has the silliest curriculum with up to five levels of maths. When I was young we all did the same compulsory arithmetic then maths. Arithmetic has been forgotten. Bureaucrats do not see that this subject is the foundation for all math.

State schemes such as "go to" the bush for an annual $10,000 check have not worked. Teach For Australia is going to forcibly place graduates in rural schools. The experience will be part of their career training. We will see what teachers unions have to say about this. They will not accept it lying down.

To willingly draw skilled young teachers to rural schools will take money and lots of it. The federal government is cutting back payments to states. And states are running deficits. Forcing movement to the bush where even basic services are not available like a decent water supply and courier deliveries, by making rules to achieve it, will not work. City born, city live is the motto of young people.

The age of entitlement is over for Australia - unless of course you vote for the Coalition. This is the the message of the A$324 million drought package comes across to Australians living in cities. The motor industry got not support, neither did SPC. Eighty per cent of Queensland is suffering drought. It is a serious crisis. However, a government must be seen to be consistent.

Taking the hammer to trade unions is to be expected from a conservative government. The Liberal-National Government is not in the center politically in Australia. It is definitely conservative: plainly an anachronism that we have to live with. The National Party would bring back tariffs if they had the power, but they will remain Liberal Party lap dogs forever.

Of course, other countries put up barriers against agricultural imports, so Australia should do the same. However, how can a government say one thing and act in a contrary manner. It cannot be taken seriously. A turn here, a flip there - What will we get next?

The government is putting disability pensioners on the dole while giving businessmen, namely farmers, unemployment benefits. This is very odd behavior. Put everyone on welfare and be done with it. If Tony Abbott follow the aggressive cuts carried out by the Queensland premier none of us will have jobs.

None are so blind as those who will not see. The "free" market will not provide the essentials that people require to live decent lives. They won't build roads, distribute water or provide adequate communication technology to everyone. Conservatives still believe that the market reigns supreme. It is their religion. Reality is that the free market is grossly distorted in the world, with monopolies and oligopolies running roughshod over smaller businesses.

Australia Post is finding that the old model has died. The number of letters has dwindled while parcel deliveries are booming. Rather than use the old monopoly action of subsidizing one sector to support another, Australia Post wants more profit than ever. It is talking about charging for letter deliveries.

In the past, urban areas paid for the cost of deliveries to the thinly populated bush. Companies today are greedy, going for profit in all sectors. Talk about privatizing the postal service is not changing this attitude - it is enforcing it.

Free deliveries for only three days a week is on offer. with a significant weekly charge for full service. As critics have pointed out money will be needed to store all the letters on hold and sorting will become an almighty mess. Another thing for Australia Post to remember is that people who post letters already pay for delivery. The ACCC and the High Court should stop the national postal service charging twice.

The federal government could bring in new laws but there will definitely be a High Court challenge. The High Court has been a tough hurdle to jump over in the past.

Tony Abbott is planning to include Aboriginals in the Constitution as the original "owners" of the land of Australia. This is like like Kevin Rudd's speech apologizing for the lost generation of Aboriginals forcibly taken from their parents and put into institutions or brought up by White people. Talk is cheap.

What Australia needs is a planned development program to make life better for Aboriginals. The right for men to receive unemployment payments was taken away by a still paternal federal government in the Northern Territory. It was taken on the premise of bad treatment of Aboriginal children. This was a blatant lie. No Aboriginal has ever been charged for ill treatment of children.

Money is needed to spend on Aboriginal communities. Tony Abbott has no money to spare, particularly with his right-wing policy of reducing taxes for wealth whites. How is Australia going to decrease the deficit with such a policy? The only thing that government can do is reduce spending. This will hit the economy and bring hard times upon us.

How can a prime minister be known for development, as Tony Abbott announced, if he has no money to spend, unless he has a magic wand up his shirt. The private sector will not voluntarily help Aboriginal communities. There is no profit in it and business has only one motivator - make more money. Telling industry to employ more Aboriginals will change nothing: they have never been taught the needed skills.

We hear so much praise about progress of the new broadband network being rolled out by the National Broadband Network (NBN). The problem is - there has been little progress. Apart from the acclaimed network in a part of Tasmania, few customers enjoy ultra-fast broadband anywhere else.

The Internet divide still exists between city and rural. Obviously the NBN will be laid out in city areas because this is where the greatest income will be obtained. As it now stands rural regions will not get faster Internet until way past 2020. Many people will be dead by then. How do we know if fiber optics will be superceded? Soon the ocean protection walls will be finished around Venice and there are cries that it is old technology and will not save the valuable city. Perhaps the same will be said about the NBN.

In the present economic climate where will be few businesses left in populated cities to enjoy the improved communication. Only if the mineral sector declines and the Aussie dollar drops in value will manufacturing and service sectors become profitable again. But a fall in mineral income will mean less tax to pay for the NBN.

The Internet may make unforeseeable changes. For example, Skype and Gmail have pushed the cost of international calls down to a few cents a minute. Telcos can no longer make a profit from providing the service. Internet operations first offered this in the early 2000s. it faded. Now it is back with a vengeance. If Internet operators can find a way past the mobile barriers put up by the telcos that will bankrupt these monster companies who overcharge for mobile calls.

There is no question that the NBN is monopolistic. It will be the only Internet provider. Smaller companies will be given piecemeal resale access. However, this will be on NBN terms. Talk is all about the benefits. If the Coalition wins the next election they could dismantle the whole operation.

Australians will embrace streaming Internet TV when they get the service promised by the National Broadband Network (NBN). For most Australians this will be many years away, particularly for those living in the outback. Work has not yet begun on many suburbs of major cities such as Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

Though streaming movies and TV is increasing, it is only in areas with a fast broadband service. Companies such as Quickflix are launching subscription offerings, but only in metropolitan regions. No matter how cheap these services are they will meet the "no-broadband" barrier.

If the NBN continues at its present slow pace, the majority of Australians will be frustrated with their inability to enjoy the latest movies in their homes. Optus MeTV is going to charge $9.95 a month for TV that uses digital audio broadcasts. Many already know that outer suburbs of large cites cannot receive a decent DAB signal and there are no plans to further extend DAB.

The only option for most people is satellite TV. Surveys show a third of Australians plan to purchase Internet set-top boxes or smart TVs. They had better check whether they can use the new technology before they buy it!